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From the editor: It all comes down to food

NRN editors take you beyond the headlines and offer perspectives on the issues and events shaping the industry. Get more inside takes from Behind the Story >>

There’s this thing I do when I eat something that makes me happy.

I start nodding, and I gently point to the meal with my fork.

It’s an involuntary movement. I’m not thinking about anything really. I’m not thinking about who the chef is, how beautiful the dish is, how trendy the restaurant is, or frankly, how the food was prepared.

I don’t really care. I’m just thinking, Man, this is good.

We want more people to have that feeling. It’s why we’re in the foodservice industry, after all. We want to share our food joy.

Sure, marketing is important and Instagrammability is important and the brand story is important and service is important. Yes, yes, yes, so many of these things are so important.

But really, it all comes back to the food, doesn’t it?

If the food is lame, no restaurant will have staying power.

This is why we are bringing you the series of case studies, “In pursuit of flavor.” This is a look at quiet culinary innovations that get customers thinking with their stomachs.

“It would be like putting pineapple on pizza to a New York old-school guy,” Cheung said.

(This point is well taken. I recently got into a heated argument about what real NY pizza is — at a work event, no less. I will spare you my thoughts on pizza, but my fervent pizza beliefs do underscore how impressive Cheung’s accomplishment is.)

Some of the ideas behind the case studies are complicated and some are dead simple, but all of them are effective. And all of them are in pursuit of better flavor.